Articles by: Clinton Fernandes

Author Biography:

Professor Clinton Fernandes is in the Future Operations Research Group at the University of New South Wales. His research focuses on emerging technologies ranging from hypersonic missiles to electromagnetic pulse weapons, directed-energy weapons, human performance enhancement, bioengineering, nanotechnologies, and advanced materials and manufacturing methods.

Neither Their War Nor Their Peace: After Ukraine, might a multipolar world emerge?

Even before the invasion, extreme weather and the pandemic had resulted in higher shipping costs, energy price inflation, labour shortages, and rising food prices.

Too Big To Tax: North West Shelf and lessons for sharing in our sovereign wealth

For as long as fossil fuels are being extracted, the Australian people should receive an equitable share of the profits from the sale of non-renewable natural resources. This will help them to adapt to climate change and manage the transition to a renewable economy.

What Are the Submarines Really For?

The decision to acquire nuclear-powered boats reflects what has been the Australian Way of War for more than a century: to operate inside the strategy of a superpower by contributing a well-chosen, niche capability to augment the larger force.

Trade routes or War Games?: Subs and the geopolitics behind the China threat

Australian strategic planners are well aware that it would be absurd to protect trade with China from China… In the real world, the military build-up is about whether foreign military and intelligence activities can be conducted in another country’s exclusive economic zone.

The Rules-Based Order

Military historians are well aware that Australian governments have not gone to war for sentimental reasons or because they were duped. The organising principle of Australian foreign policy is to remain on the winning side of a worldwide confrontation between the empire and the lands dominated by it. 

China Games

China responded to the US presence in the Bashi Channel by sending Su-30 and J-16 fighter aircraft and Xian H-6 bombers into the area, where they simulated missile attacks on the US vessels.

The China Divide: Industry, technology and military relations are all tied up in strategies now unfolding

The United States is determined to stop China narrowing the gap in technological prowess. The new ‘digital iron curtain’ dividing the world into US and Chinese technological zones runs through Australia…

Safe Space for Spying: What remains unsaid by the Signals Directorate

In government, neither side of politics has ordered an inquiry into the Iraq War, and the most obvious question is not asked in the NSC’s safe spaces: do Australia’s expeditionary military campaigns raise or lower the threat to domestic security? If you fear the answer, better not ask the question.

Informit: Sub-imperial state: Australian dirty work [Book Review]

Review(s) of: Secret: The Making of Australia's Security State, by Brian Toohey, (Melbourne University Press, 2019); Oil Under Troubled Water: Australia's Timor Sea Intrigue, by Bernard Collaery, (Melbourne University Press, 2020).

Sub-Imperial State: Australian Dirty Work

The instruments of statecraft, as exposed by Brian Toohey and Bernard Collaery, are wielded in the interests of those with real power: elite elements in the private sector and the US national-security state, which defends a global order protective of its interests.